Cc-europe mailing list

[John Hendrik Weitzmann <jhweitzmann AT mx.uni-saarland.de>]

Hi Gisle,

> I know I won't win any friends (or even influence people) by
> saying this here.  However, I feel obliged to protest *again*
> against Creative Commons being used to further the interests
> of Google Inc. shareholders.

to start (not related to the potential impact of the 
Presse-Leistungsschutzrecht):

Just because free speech also favours Google, that won't turn me into an 
enemy of free speech. You?

> The contested German law (Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger)
> does *not* interfere with the function of CC's licenses and tools,
> or prevent them from being used.

You are wrong, it falls outside of sec. 1.e of the licenses and thus 
adds another layer of rights (and complexity) in an area most prominent 
for CCPL adoption, that is: news texts.

> We live in times where is becoming more and more obvious that
> technology is separating content and value creation.  Value are
> still being created from content, but remittance flows less and
> less towards the creator.  Instead, it flows towards aggregators
> that don't create any content, but takes content that others
> have created and finds ways of monetizing it.

well, I'd like to see any consistent definition of the "it" you are 
talking about. Of course there is something flowing to the aggregators, 
but to state that this is the same value that would rightfully otherwise 
flow to creators (which ones exactly?) is bogus. And it isn't the least 
anything "obvious".

Oh, but sorry, I forgot that anyone not following the "obvious" thoughts 
you have is probably a paid spin-doctor of Google and/or of all of 
Silicon Valley. Maybe I should check my bank account again, might find 
some dirty aggregator money there ...

> As a creator, I find this development deeply problematic.  If we
> are going to have independent, quality journalism created by paid
> journalists twenty years from now, instead of just tweets and blogs
> by unpaid amateurs and paid spin-doctors, we need to find some way
> of making some of the value created by content again flow in the
> direction of those that create it.

true, but (at least in Germany) it is the press publishers themselves 
who are diverting the value away from those who actually create, that 
is: journalists. Instead they squeeze out of their editorial staffs a 
ROI of between 10 and 15%. And now they want a new related right 
established which they can enforce without needing consent by (and 
giving a share to) their journalists, at the expense of everyone else 
which - of course - would be focussed on Google, because that's where 
the (read: "their") mystic money is.

This part of the story does not have anything to do with CC, for the 
license interference see above.

> As I understand *Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger*, it
> proposes that aggregators (i.e. Google) who makes tons of money
> on content created by others shall be required to pay some of that
> money back to the publishers that pays the journalists that
> creates the content.

... except for the part from "that pays the journalists ..." because 
right now the publishers can already enforce copyright *on behalf* of 
their journalists, but they want to get rid of that annoying behalf 
thing and get their own snippet right.
You actually seem to believe in the term "trickle-down economics". 
Luchily the German Association of Freelance Journalists (Freischreiber) 
doesn't and thus does support the IGEL platform.

And, Google can surely fight for itself, but if you are allowed to 
denounce other peoples balatancy, so am I, and your rant is blatantly 
one-sided (again, this is not the CC critique part of the story):

a) I wonder how Google can "make tons of money on content" (via Google 
News) that they don't even sell ads for - maybe they developed a new 
technology to secretly advertise or have some other evil scheme running (?).
b) You should explain to me how showing snippets can actually hurt 
quality journalism. If the story can be told in 3 lines without you 
wanting to read the rest (and clicking your way to the actual newspaper 
website) it's probably not such an interesting read after all.
c) Plus it is really hard to understand how Google News can be such a 
nemesis for any publisher if - according to a survey conducted by the 
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany's most famous newspaper - today 
more than 90% of the publishing houses' content isn't even accessible 
free of charge on the web, which means doesn't even get into the 
eyesight of search bots in the first place.

It's like giving the club owner a right to charge the taxi driver who 
brings the party guests.

> While I am not convinced that this type
> of statutory license schemes are going to save the Press, I
> also think that this is *not* Creative Commons' fight.

as far as new related rights are messing up copyright even more, it 
surely is, see above. But the snippet right thing goes much much 
further, of course.

> It
> is obviou that such licensing schemes is not in the interest
> og Google - but why do CC *have* to enlist in Google's army
> in these tussles?

a little too much obviousness in your argumentation for my taste.

> I think CC now needs to think seriously about its independence.

true, they always need to do that. IMO they have done quite a good job 
there so far. While you in effect seem to ask of CC HQ to keep from 
commenting on anything that could be in favour of Google. That is a 
strange understanding of independence.

> I find it deeply disturbing that CC repeatedly makes advocacy
> efforts on behalf of Google, and at the same time receives
> huge donations from both Google Inc. itself and from key Google
> officers.  Is these advocacy efforts on behalf of Google compatible
> with CC's status as a charity?

you seriously should check on your concept of "on behalf".

Best regards
John